I'm like a unicorn; I'm a midlist writer who hasn't done anything else but write. But because I wasn't amazingly famous, I didn't become Stephanie Meyer, or even a huge literary name like a Jonathan Franzen or a Joshua Ferris.

I myself am mixed race - my mother is Korean, and my father is an American Jew - so I've always felt other.

When I was around eight, I learned how to touch-type at school, and I received a computer as a present. I started writing plays, and for many years I thought I would be a playwright.

Before I liked to write, I liked to type. I remember visiting my grandmother Adele in Ponce Inlet, Florida, when I was three years old, and she had an IBM electric typewriter.

How do I let go of Maplewood? It's like Shangri-la. It's so culturally diverse, and all my children are adopted - a transracial family. And we're not the freaks. Everybody flies their freak flag high in Maplewood!

Football is my life, but my family's health is the most important thing in the world.

People are always saying that Hollywood messes up kids. I'm like, 'No, families mess up kids!' I grew up in Hollywood, and I'm perfectly fine. If my children want to go into the entertainment business, I won't stop them, as long as they're passionate about it.

I cried to my mother that I wanted to go to Hebrew school; I wanted Jewish friends. But when my mother took me, the kids there all knew each other, and somehow I was even more of an outcast.